


Whiskey in the Jar: An Interlude

by roguefaerie (samidha)



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Yuletide, Yuletide 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 11:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17059175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/roguefaerie
Summary: Wednesday, Media, Laura and Sweeney walk into a bar of sorts.





	Whiskey in the Jar: An Interlude

**Author's Note:**

  * For [twistedchick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedchick/gifts).



Plain whiskey. They are drinking plain whiskey, in a bar made of the fabric of digitization. Shadow is nowhere to be found, because that’s something Shadows are good at--disappearing when it’s necessary.

This is, perhaps, something of an interlude, and the smile on Media’s face says that it is going well. 

Too well, probably.

“This place is mine,” she says. “And you are welcome to it. It’s good, getting you all in a room together. And no pesky Peter Pan magic to follow you, hm? Do you like the music?”

They’re surrounded by a strange ‘80s muzak arrangement that Laura can’t put her finger on exactly...except that it’s very, very, very eighties and just grating enough… And it has that weird lounge singer feel to it all the same, lots of sax and the kind of muzak that says the world wants you to want it. And things. The world wants you to want things.

Laura is unsettled.

Wednesday looks unflappable in his cream suit, and Laura isn’t sure at first how to read the fact that Shadow isn’t here. It’s just as well, because Shadow has some things to work out in his head, Laura knows, and the guy who couldn’t even figure out that she was depressed when they were married is going to take a little bit of time to chew on what he now knows about the people they’re dealing with.

All right. That’s just slightly cruel, but then, Laura never said anything about not being cruel.

*~*~*

There’s no mead in sight and that’s the important part. Wednesday isn’t about to try to broker a deal in unfamiliar, in fact extremely digital territory. He never has seen the inside of that bizarre limo he’s heard tell of, but this place is doing his head in just as well and easily.

He’s not sure if he wants Shadow here, if having Shadow here would help or hurt the situation.

Media is still talking about the muzak--how only the earliest millennials would recognize it for what it is and that’s what makes it so gosh darn perfect for exactly what she wants to do.

Wednesday can barely stand her, and he’s pretty sure that is entirely by design. 

He takes a peek over at Sweeney, and Sweeney, of course, is watching the woman--dead or not dead.

Typical.

*~*~*

Sweeney leans closer to Laura and sneers a bit, but the words “Dead Wife” don’t have as much bite to them as they did at the beginning. Something of Stockholm Syndrome, maybe, but they’re not sure, either of them, who has who in captivity.

The Dead Wife still says she loves her husband, her Shadow. She says it even in her sleep. He’s heard her, and yet they’re cut of the same slightly tricksy, slightly malicious cloth, the two of them. There’s something about her soul that calls to Sweeney, like the lasses who didn’t forget him; like she’s from the auld country somehow.

He’ll take that and keep it with him, an ace in the hole, a fond remembrance of Essie and the others. He keeps it close as Media goes on and on about music that is not music at all, music that’s barely there and ever-present, by design.

She’s having a grand old time, Media is, blipping in and out of form like changing staticky channels on TV. 

And at least there’s not a drop of mead in sight. No deals struck--not that way, not with the old gods. It’s a relief and yet also Sweeney wonders if it’s a hindrance. A warning sign that something else is coming that he won’t be ready for. Knowing his luck since he lost the sun, it’s bound to somehow bite him in the arse.

*~*~*

The air tastes metalic, or smells that way, or a combination of both. And like burning rubber. Like tech gone wrong.

The muzak starts over from the beginning.

Laura thinks of working retail. A corner store or a gas station. Maybe at holiday time, although the muzak isn’t for Rudolph. Not yet anyway.

*~*~*

“I hear you two have an interesting coming-together story,” Media says, insipid.

She flits around the room as if her shoes propel her farther and faster than she ought to go.

“I’d love to hear it. I bet it’s a story that’s lots of fun.”

Sweeney grunts.

“Dead Wife can--”

“Sweeney,” Wednesday says, warningly.

And Sweeney stops, however much he’s already screwed the pooch on this assignment.

Laura misses Shadow, the way you miss a shadow--when you know he’s supposed to be there and suddenly realize he’s not and things are just that much more unsettling.

The songs in the muzak are running together, melodies blurring into one long blare of sound.

“Lovely, lovely,” Media says. “We’re doing wonderfully here. Why, I haven’t even noticed the time. Have you?”

A shiver runs down Laura’s spine. She’s had the feeling of timelessness ever since her body became only theoretically hers, but she hasn’t been talking to anyone about it.

“I’ve been wondering when you all might mention your little friend, but things are going so well I imagine we don’t even need to go that far…”

One by one they realize it, stealing glances at each other. They don’t know how to get out of Media’s strange, be-muzaked little digital playroom. 

And that probably means that they have one hope.

Someone light on his feet as a shadow, and confused about his place in the world.

That might be a best case scenario.

On the other hand, Laura is able to...get things done. Sweeney may not have said it all out loud, but they’re thinking it. Maybe even Media is thinking it.

If there’s one thing they might be able to count on, short attention span might be in their favor.

And, as ever, the lack of mead.

It’s a bar where Media forgot any sacred drinks. She wouldn’t know much about them, as it were. They’re not really her _decade_.

Wednesday smiles slightly and catches Laura’s eye, then Sweeney’s. There may be a way out of here yet.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Yuletide. I hope you liked this.


End file.
